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Alcoholic, Not Anonymous

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VINCE

Today is India squad’s (my squad) down day. Already, we’ve been busy. Doing homework takes a lot of time. So does ironing. We need to have seven creases on our khaki shirts and four on our trousers. Oh, also making our beds takes a while. That is what I struggle the most with.

I am a perfectionist. I didn’t really know that until I got here. Thing is, I can’t do anything here perfectly, so I become frustrated and angry with myself. That can put me in a bad mood, which I communicate with my body language. Like brightly colored smoke. Stay away from me!

I tell myself I don’t want to work on fixing my bunk because I know I can’t do it correctly. And I don’t want to ask for help because I should know how to do it by now and I don’t want to look like an idiot. Do I make any sense here?

I’ll be fine in a few more days. 171 days left. I will take advantage of every one of them.

—

I received the glasses my mom bought me a couple days ago. I’ve been told a couple times that Buddy Holly called and wants his glasses back, but they look much better than the ones I had.

Okay, this will be it from me for a while. It’s time to focus on Me and my treatment plan. I hope you’ve all enjoyed my writing. There will be more, and when I get out in September I will have plenty of time to write about more of my life experiences and my time here and in prison. I have a lot to write about. I’m not exactly proud of where I’ve been and things I’ve done, but it helps me a lot to think and write about it all. Some of it is certainly entertaining.

Last thing. I know many of you have made comments on the blog. Thank you. Feedback, whether positive or negative, helps me. And if you really want to make my day, you can write to me directly at the address below:

Vincent Maertz 244296

MCF-WR/CIP

86032 County Highway 61

Willow River, Minnesota 55795

USA

“Don’t take life too seriously. You’ll never get out alive.”

– Van Wilder

[ANNE: So there we are, no longer anonymous. If it’s okay with Vince, it’s okay with me.]

Thinking vs. Thinking

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VINCE

I just can’t find the time to accurately describe our schedule. It does change daily.

Today I worked for seven hours doing laundry for all three barracks (182 men). Then, before I even had a chance to sit, we went out for drill and ceremony, where we marched for two hours.

Now I have to do my treatment homework, so that’s it until later.

Later. I forgot to mention that the CD treatment here is called Positive Changes. It was developed for the Minnesota Department of Corrections by Hazelden. Hazelden Center for Youth and Family worked pretty well for me back in ’01, so I’m hoping this cognitive thinking approach works for me because I just don’t think the 12 step program is for me anymore. Not to say I won’t go to meetings, when I get out, I just can’t get past the God thing, and I don’t like the idea of pawning my problems off on something that isn’t real.

Way off track there. It’s almost lights out time. Tomorrow is my down day. Good night.

[ANNE: I am a big fan of cognitive therapy, and it’s not the same thing as positive thinking, so I wonder about this treatment program called Positive Changes.

Don’t get me wrong, positive thinking feels a lot better than negative. If you are able to easily choose positive over negative thinking, why wouldn’t you?

But in my 55 years of living I’ve only met two types of people who espouse positive thinking: 1) people who have never faced any serious life challenges, who tell the rest of us, “Just think positive!” and 2) people who are living in a fantasy world, whose lives would be considered by most people to be a mess but who exclaim, “Isn’t everything great!” Actually, the name for this second one is denial—it’s a defense mechanism that protects us from harsh reality until we’re strong enough to deal with it.

I went to Alanon meetings and worked that program for years. I got a lot out of it. I wish Vince could switch the word “god” to “the group” or some other support outside himself that is a support to his sobriety.

Back to the question of thinking, positive or otherwise. In Alanon there are a lot of slogans like One Day at a Time and Live and Let Live. There was one that was simply the word Think. For years I had no idea what that one meant. Think!? That’s all I did! I worried, obsessed, and mentally gnawed on all my family’s problems.

Then one day, maybe soon after I lost my belief in God, I realized it just meant what it said—Think, you idiot! Use the mind that God—or evolution—gave you. Thinking is different from obsessing or worrying. I found it helpful to reason things out with another person who was outside of the situation. It may sound simple, but in alcoholic families we are dealing with people who are not rational but manipulative, indirect, and sneaky. Alcoholics are often brilliant and charismatic, but they’re also liars. People affected by them tend to be martyrs.

And you wonder why I want to move to another country?]

The Drill

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VINCE

I’m starting to settle in. But we are warned not to get comfortable. Our punishments for minor infractions like falling out of formation, forgetting to remove or put on our hat when going outside or coming in, are pushups. Those are meant to refocus our attention on paying attention. And there are no shortcuts allowed here.

Somebody was using a pencil to wedge his green scrubby pad into his belt buckle to get some hard to reach copper. A CO must have seen him cheating on the camera and they called him out, took his buckle, smashed it with a hammer, and gave him a new one. That was after five days of scrubbing. To put that into perspective, I have been working on mine for nine days and I’m still not done. Of course, I haven’t been cheating.

My boots are not done. I’ve been polishing the leather tips of them with spit and ghost-coats after applying a thicker first layer a week ago. I have spent roughly 10 total hours just making circles with a thin blue rag. I’m also getting really close to done on my buckle. When we’re done, that frees up a lot of time for treatment and work crew.

The work crew consists of anybody that isn’t in school or doing something else. Today they went into the woods and raked. They actually raked the woods. I can’t really describe to you how pointless that seems, but that’s just one of many way they keep us busy.

—

Day 10. Getting into it. What used to feel like chaos is what actually makes our days go so quickly. We’re never in one spot for over two hours.

Schedule:

5:20 a.m. Wake up, Head Count

5:25 a.m. Make our beds (with 45 degree angles everywhere), shave, brush teeth, get dressed, put laundry in bins

5:45 a.m. On alternating days, run or do aerobics for one hour. Stretch for 10 minutes before and after

6:55 a.m. Get back to barracks. 57 men shower, pee, poop, get dressed in our khakis, everything looking sharp, belt buckle lined up with our fly and shirt (gig line), boots laced tight and laces tucked into the boot at the top, lockers organized, clothes properly folded, etc.

7:20 a.m. Count. We stand perfectly still at Military POA (Point of Attention) for up to 30 minutes, usually less

8:00 a.m. Chow time. We file in, stand at Parade Rest (feet shoulder-width apart, feet at 45 degree angles, hands locked behind our backs, eyes and head forward, no movement), then slowly move through the chow line. We eat quietly then file out. There are many details I’m skipping, maybe I’ll have time to write about them later.

8:40 a.m. Barracks cleaning

9:00 a.m. Some people go to school, others to morning treatment, some go to work. Work is either KP (Kitchen Patrol) or laundry (me), community work, all sorts of stuff really. I go to treatment at 1:00 p.m. until 4:30.

After evening meal, we do a lot of different stuff including more aerobics or running or going to the library or study hall.

Today we started treatment. Already I’m remembering a lot from my time in Hazelden 14 years ago. One similarity is that I still have to deal with a good number of people who don’t want to be here or don’t think they have problems. They weren’t aware that this was going to be such a big part of boot camp. We shall see how long that lasts.

The KFQ

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VINCE

It’s really stressful here. People are constantly screaming at us. Today I was given contradictory orders by two different guards and I got in big trouble. I really felt like yelling back but I didn’t. Then ten of us had to use spades to till up four garden plots roughly 50×100’. It took us two hours, non-stop, but we did it. I felt pretty good afterwards.

All right, I’m exhausted. Yes, we get up at 5:20 a.m. Monday through Sunday, 182 days straight. Sundays are down days, but we’re still active.

—

Today was a busy day. It’s amazing how fast the days go when we keep busy for 16 straight hours.

We started out by taking about a three mile walk, at 5:45 a.m. When we get back to our barracks, 58 men cram into the bathroom, undress, then rotate our way through the showers. Then we hurry to get dressed, all of us still in the small bathroom area.

It takes a lot to change because we have to …

I don’t even know where that last sentence was going. Those last two paragraphs were all I had time to write yesterday.

[ANNE: Vince wrote: If the plan is for me to live with you, then your landlord has to be made aware of the situation ASAP, and you need to have a landline installed by the time I get there, and you cannot have any alcoholic beverages on the premises. Start talking with your landlord now just in case there is a problem.

Aaargh. I don’t want or need a landline. I really enjoy my beer or wine after work. And I surely do not want to have that discussion with my landlord, who I’ve never met but have only spoken to to complain about things that don’t work.

“Hello, I’m calling to let you know that my son will be moving in with me; he’s just getting out of prison for a drug sentence…is that a problem?” Right. That’s gonna go down well. Would I be asking permission, or just informing them? Will they have the right to say No? Maybe I will have to move. Maybe if I just don’t tell them, and don’t tell Vince that I didn’t tell them….

I love my son and I want to support his recovery, but I really don’t want to be inconvenienced by it. Does that sound terrible? Or am I already putting more into supporting him than most people would find acceptable? This is where the Kafkaesque Family Quagmire of family boundaries comes into play.]        

 

 

The KCQ

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VINCE

Learning how to iron. Learning to polish boots. Still scrubbing my belt buckle. Marching in formation is really difficult with 17 guys that have never done it before. People going in so many different directions. It’s absolute chaos, but we get to work on it every day. I’m exhausted, but dealing with it, as if my life depends on it, which it does.

We haven’t started chemical dependency (CD) treatment yet, that’s next week. But the general consensus from the people that have been in it is that it’s different and it is working for them.

AA in my opinion has turned into too much of a faith-based 12 step program. I have no interest in religion and am generally turned off whenever the subject comes up in public (yes, AA isn’t exactly public but I think I got my point across).

Anyhow, I’m excited to try out a different approach. Maybe this will be the one.

I can say this: they really come after us from all angles here. Mental, physical, emotional, and whatever other angles exist that I don’t know about yet.

This is not just the beginning of the rest of my life. This is the opportunity to enjoy the rest of my life, be a good, honest person, and break free from the evil spell of my addictions.

Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again. This time more intelligently.

[ANNE: I got into trouble again, unintentionally, this time with Vince. For six months, I’ve sent him every blog post, no matter what the content. His, mine…this has been part of the deal, so he can see I’m not editing him, or he can change or clarify something if he wants. But then I got his first letter from boot camp:

“I maybe didn’t clarify enough how important it is to never send me any posts, especially of the nature that you sent most recently. That subject is absolutely taboo. I thought you knew that. Send me the comments from everybody, and your posts. Sending me posts like the Kermit one could easily get me kicked out. No joke. So please think before you send.”

No, he had not told me not to send any of his posts anymore. Given all the conflicting, capricious rules and difficulty of us communicating, he could be forgiven for thinking he had. God, I could have gotten him kicked out of boot camp in his first week!

So there I went again, middle-aged mom wading into the Kafkaesque correctional quagmire (the KCQ—good acronym!).

“Kafkaesque: having a nightmarishly complex, bizarre, or illogical quality, as in “Kafkaesque bureaucratic delays.”]

See You on the Other Side

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VINCE

Three days until freedom, 183 days until my release.

I will not be able to write as frequently from boot camp but I will when I can and I think it will be even more powerful than ever. The following story will be the last thing that I write from Moose Lake.

In the last 10 years, I have spent three + years on meth, six + years as a drunk, and eight months in prison.

By far, being a drunk took the worst toll on me. It didn’t land me in the clink, but I lost so much of myself that it’s really hard for me to look back on it and be honest about it.

My mother has written about it from her perspective and I’ve always just kind of brushed it off, not wanting to deal with the truth.

Truth is, I was a mess. Every day. Drunk. I held jobs through most of it. But in every other aspect of life I failed.

Every cent I had went to booze. No room for food, clothing. I guess I paid my rent most of the time.

I had three days off per week. So starting right when I woke up, I would drink my breakfast, say 7 a.m. Drink beers and smoke cigarettes until the bar opened at 11 a.m., then drink into oblivion until I blacked out. Waking up somehow back in my apartment, or somebody else’s.

I’ve woken up on pool tables. In the middle of the street surrounded by police. Under water, naked, having just tipped my best friend’s canoe, losing it forever. And once I woke up and I realized I was clutching a fully loaded shotgun, with my finger on the trigger guard, safety off. I’m not saying I was suicidal, but I did question my motivation. Then laughed it off.

Every day, for years, I woke up with no food in the fridge. I worked in restaurants, but I still only really ever ate one meal a day, four days a week. I was not healthy.

—

It’s Tuesday morning. 7:50 a.m. In 24 hours I will be leaving this terrible place, in search of the tools that will make it so I never have to re-visit the places I have just described.

I had a picture of me taken one week before boot camp which my mother will somehow put near this last post, and we will put up a new picture in six months, just to show the physical improvement gained through the program. I weigh 200 pounds here. We’ll hopefully see a transformation. Again, I will keep writing, just not so much.

Pre Boot Camp

I really enjoy reading the feedback we’ve been getting keep it coming.

Alright, it’s time to go get my life back. Wish me luck.

Here I go.

Thank You

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VINCE

My leg finally feels better. I haven’t done anything to risk re-injuring it and I kind of feel like a bum. Tomorrow I will go back to the gym and get back to my routine, although I won’t be playing any more competitive sports. Too risky for me at this point.

15 meals and a wake up. One of several ways we measure time here. Five days left of prison. Soon there will be no more bars, no more yelling (by prisoners), and no more sex offenders. There are no fences at boot camp. Of course there would still be escape charges if one were to leave without permission, but people seem to want to stay over there.

Sometime during our second week there, I’ve been told, we will be out in the community doing volunteer work. It’s going to be quite the change.

—

Ten meals and a wake up. I suppose the real wake up starts at boot camp. I have been in contact with a couple like-minded people who left one and two months before me. Both said they have really enjoyed the change. These two, like me, are going for the right reason: to positively change their lives. And they both live in St. Paul, so I will have some friends in recovery when I get out. Very important.

That’s what I lost when I left Florida. My group. My allies. The people I grew up with as an adult. I never got it back and I slowly let that become my excuse for using again.

—

Six meals and a wake up. It’s Sunday night and I’ve been having sort of a tough time coming up with things to write about. So I decided to take this time to thank all of you who have been following this journey and those who have commented on this blog. My mom and I knew from the get go that this was going to be powerful stuff, and it takes a fair amount of courage to write it down knowing it can be seen by the masses.

Thank you for letting me let it all out. It has helped me transform into a new man. Six months ago I really wasn’t too sure about this boot camp idea. Even after two months of sobriety I still wanted to be part of “the game.” I was still writing to and talking to all the old characters, setting myself up for disaster. Now I haven’t written or called anybody other than family and a couple guys that are in boot camp right now, for the right reason.

The Send Off

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VINCE

There are so many bad choices I’ve made in my life. But I am ready to break free of my old habits. Nine days until I commit myself to positive change, 189 days til freedom.

—

My second to last court appearance in June last year was a contested omnibus hearing where I finally decided to just make a deal. I was sick of my life and ready to go to prison. It happened a little faster than I thought it would, as I’ve written before.

I left the courtroom knowing that I had eight days left of freedom. Instead of using that time productively I went about my usual routine. Little did I know there was a plan in the works to leave me broke and broken.

Three days before my sentencing, I was robbed at knife point by three people that I thought I knew. They cornered me in a room and told me to empty my pockets, waving around a very short and wide knife.

You may not think of that as too much of a threat. But a person wielding a one-inch knife is ready to use it more quickly than a six-inch knife because it wouldn’t likely produce a fatal wound.

So I emptied my pockets and the one with the knife sucker punched me in the eye. As I turned around he punched me again, in the same spot. That really hurt.

They all called me some names and then left. Their goal was to steal my truck and leave me stranded but fortunately the ignition was broken, and they could not figure out my homemade tweaker [meth user] ignition featuring a light switch for toggle and a doorbell button for the starter switch.

I got up. In a daze I walked to the bathroom. I had a huge black eye. My nose was bleeding and my ego was shot.

They took about $1,000 combined money and drugs from me. It was all I had. But even that didn’t stop me. Nothing ever really did. I knew then that I needed to be locked up, in prison or chained to a radiator, it didn’t matter. I knew I wanted to stop, but I couldn’t. My name is Vince and I’m an addict.

—

ANNE

I received a postcard from Vince. Between it and him writing, “I’m an addict,” I felt hope for him for the first time in 10 years.

Hola,

One week away! I’m looking forward to a new life. Again.

Thank you so much for all your support, and hard work. It must be tough at times. I love you very much and I’m happy we have become so close.

Love,

Vince

But was it real? There’s an old joke:

Q: How do you tell when an alcoholic is lying?

A: His lips are moving.

Vince writes about how many days til boot camp…how many days til he’s free…then he can start to change his life. I’m a firm believer that you can change your life now, regardless of whether your circumstances. That work can only be done inside your head, using cognitive behavior therapy, meditation, and other techniques. If you don’t know how to do it, as I didn’t for many years, you’re stuck. Physical fitness and self discipline are great, but I really hope this boot camp thing helps Vince figure out how to rewire his “stinking thinking”, as they call it in AA.

Pickled

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VINCE

Looking back I often wonder how my brain still functions.

I first smoked pot at a birthday party in middle school. , like many people their first time, I didn’t actually get high, so I faked it. Sitting in the back of a van at a drive-in movie, staring out at the big screen, pretending to be high like I had seen in the movies.

Just a couple short years later I had a huge tolerance and was trying out some different things.

I worked more than a few shifts at Burger King on heavy doses of Beavis and Butthead and Black Pyramid acid. Holy….shit. I was the drive-through order taker and I remember seeing the speaker melting off the wall as an order was being given to me. I was laughing hysterically and drooling but my boss wouldn’t fire me because he got his weed from me. I was always able to get through my shifts uninjured, which annoyed me and my friends.

During the last year that I attended high school, I put myself into sort of a last chance program called OJT (on the job training).

At 17 years old I was given a badge, a taser, and a billy club and became one of three security guards at Liberty State Bank.

During the first half of my shift, I sorted mail in the mailroom in the basement, then I would go upstairs and direct traffic in the parking lot if it was busy or sit in the guard shack and smoke cigarettes and weed and sell mushrooms and weed. I could monitor all radio traffic so I knew they never suspected a thing.

I lost that job when they found out I dropped out of school. They even offered to buy me a computer so I could get my diploma online. I said no.

—

It’s Monday morning. Last night I got my pass to take the fitness test, the last step in the process of being officially okayed for boot camp.

Unfortunately, on Saturday night I was injured while playing pickle ball.

I wasn’t even overdoing it. I actually thought somebody had hit me in the leg, but when I looked behind me, nobody was there, and I limped away.

When I got back to the unit, I asked the CO for a bag of ice. He asked why and I told him. And then he “pushed the button”, as we call it. Dee doo dee doo dee doo! People came running from every direction. And then came the wheel chair. Fuck! How embarrassing.

They wheeled me about ¼ mile to Health Services where they stood me up, felt my leg, and told me to walk back to the unit, on my bad leg. Fuck!

I iced it down, slept, then took a hot shower in the morning. I was in some pain, had a little trouble walking but I was pretty sure I could make it through the test.

And I did.

Here’s what I had to do: 20 pushups, 20 crunches, run a mile, do about 10 minutes of the tape, to show you’d been practicing, and some light weight lifting. Eight months ago, I would have dropped dead from that much physical activity. But I passed and I felt pretty good. Really good.

Eleven days until boot camp. I am no longer nervous. Only excited. Excited to change my life.

Free Will

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ANNE

Vince has written about how he doesn’t believe in any god. I used to. For 50 years I never doubted God’s existence; I guess that’s called faith.

I was a seeker. I didn’t assume that, because I was born into a Catholic family, attended Catholic schools, and lived in a Catholic neighborhood, I would always be Catholic.

I spent my teens investigating other faiths and converted to one when I was 18. I’m not trying to be coy by not naming it. Once Vince is out it’ll be no big deal. I belonged to a congregation, went to services every week, and put Vince through religious school, much to his displeasure. I wasn’t a happy clappy bible banger. My congregation is as liberal as they get. Yes, I’m still a member, even though I don’t believe in a god.

Since my dad had died young, I had no problem believing in an invisible father figure who would always be there for me.

Problem was, He wasn’t there for me. For 50 years, I prayed. I tried the begging, pleading prayers and the grateful, worshipping ones. I tried shutting up and listening, aka meditating. But I never heard anything. I never got any answers and never felt comforted. People said, “you have to be patient,” and “maybe God’s answer is ‘no’.” I was well aware of how we contort our logic to make sense of God. For instance, how athletes thank God when they win but blame themselves when they lose.

Then one day, when I was 50, my belief in God just went poof! and disappeared. It was like a light switch had been flipped off. What a relief! I no longer had to try to shake answers or love out of a being I couldn’t see or hear. I was free to pursue or not pursue whatever I wanted. I didn’t have to wait around for a sign from God. If it didn’t work out, I could analyze what went wrong, figure out my part, if any, and do it different next time.

Soon after my faith evaporated, I read the old classic novel Of Human Bondage, by W. Somerset Maugham, which is about an abusive relationship. This passage jumped out at me and summarized how I felt: “He was responsible only to himself for the things he did. Freedom! He was his own master at last. From old habit, unconsciously he thanked god he no longer believed in him.”

I wouldn’t go so far as to say everything is due to my effort, like in the old Rush song, Free Will. It’s easy to be smug when you’re a millionaire rock star. The fact is, we live in a world with constraints like race, class, intellectual and physical abilities, bad luck, good luck, etc.

Another great mind, former professional wrestler, Navy Seal, Minnesota Governor Jesse “The Body” Ventura, got into hot water for saying “Religion is a crutch for weak minded people.” I wasn’t weak minded all those years. I’m a very intelligent person. I just think I needed a father figure and I had been steeped in the Catholic life up until age 18, where questioning God’s existence just wasn’t done.

This new development did throw a wrench in the works for me in my Alanon meetings. Alanon is for families and friends of alcoholics and addicts. I attended weekly meetings and “worked the program”, as they say. Alanon, like AA and the other 12-step groups, uses the term higher power interchangeably with god—and everything depends on believing in one. In my group, people only used the word God, and spoke of God, personally, like he was kindly uncle. I kept going for a year but it finally bugged me so much that I quit.

I’ve written in previous posts about believing that human connections are the key to spiritual growth and inner peace and a feeling of belonging and all that jazz. Vince is counting on his sober friends to keep him sober, and I think he’s on the right track.